Lost Pages

Monday, 17 December 2012

I am talking to Max about the similarity between
Paris and Calcutta when he starts rolling a joint. He has carefully stashed
away some for the evening. Our taxi ambles away easily when the driver sniffs
the dope and looks back…I look at Max who is coolly going about his job…mixing
tobacco and grass in the right proportion...stoking the joint so that it
holds…licking the rolling paper finally…French (Europeans as I get to learn
later) are really fond of tobacco...Max says his biggest discovery of India is…well…cheap
cigarettes…

Driving through the bylanes of Calcutta at night…
dead communists lying at crossroads with dead Englishmen…Mr. AJC bose
running parallel to one Mr.. Elgin…(howdy gentlemen…bhadralok…)roads are almost
deserted and not all of them lead to the Park street….but our taxi that
night does lead to that hallowed street…to the most classless place in
the entire city…where there’s a drink for all…Olypub…where the maître d' will
‘accidentally’ spill over extra booze from the jigger into your glass…

The taxi stops…Max and I enter Oly with great
expectations, much lesser cash and quite a few stares…Max tells me he’s of sick
of being stared at in Calcutta…I wonder whether I will be stared at if I am in
Paris… meanwhile I am looking for a seat and true to the place’s reputation
there’s none…bearded communists are drinking with the same élan as a group of
college going kids…they are all here to drink…a great leveler like death…a
virtual toast from my side to the sincere buggers…cheers…

Max approaches
the college gang for a light and is obliged by a nymph (sorry for the lack of a
more polite word, but to be honest she will behave true to the word as the
night proceeds). Max is pretty cool at this…striking casual conversations at
ease “ you have a light on you” or just his European good looks
smile…with strangers…pretty effective…the gang is ready to adjust us on their
table ( all smokers…)

We order a
drink as the kids rattle off in Bengali…I can speak broken Bengali so I try to
catch words and interpret…..bhalo…khabo…etc etc….but finally give up and
order for a vodka for myself…the nymph asks me if I’ve heard about
Parikrama…who are performing at Someplace else at the park hotel…I nod
in the affirmative…Parikrama...the bestest (arguably) rock band in
India…apparently they play Floyd better then Floyd themselves ( ever since
Gilmour and Waters parted ways)..are playing next door... “So why the hell are
we here…”asks Max ( who is high on a joint and down on a peg)…I give him a
stern look since I don’t want to declare in front of a few college going kids
that we don’t have cash on us (he’s smiling back..the French fool) and liquor
at park hotel will burn holes into his pocket so deep that he could scratch his
knees..

There is an
ugly looking Bengali chick among the kids who’s staring at me. Ugly women are
my forte…easier to get and and easier to dump. No…( belch) strings ( belch
followed by another belch) attached. I know already I am going to detest her,
her body, her feelings for me eventually. Infact I detest everything
about her already except her body, the lust checks my disgust…lust for the
bust, keeps away the disgust (my retort to an apple a day keeps the doctor
away).

In no time
we are four down ( four and a quarter thanks to the deary waiter)…and life is
much better…max and nymph are sharing a joint…(not so) ugly chick has placed
her arm next to mine…so the intentions are clear…gulp, gulp..five down..Read the book further for free at http://www.bloodygoodbook.com/calcutta-dope

Talking about the stark contrast between their handwritings…his so ugly that a complete generation of professors at his school had cursed their career choices while marking his exam copies (all great men had bad handwritings…but vice versa?)…and hers’ so calligraphic that by the time she wrote his name on a ( The only...of the promised many…) book she gifted him, slanted her head and gave it one final look , he fell in love with it… ………………………………………………………………………………………….

Joking about people’s pot bellies one day when he vowed he’ll never have one…little did he know that pot bellies like death were inevitable, especially if one’s hatred of pot bellies was never greater than one’s love for good food…and he was to remember for the rest of his life the promise he could not keep…averting a self fulfilling prophecy of pot bellies…and many other prophecies which he had inflicted on himself…

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There was vodka in munnar…a new brand called ‘romanov’ (2002)…obtained from a shady malyalee ‘ llll’liquor shop stinking of piss…it was the first time it struck him that she was beautiful....the way her hair swung while she danced …her eyes were just the gentle medium brown colour…reflecting the bonfire…with a drunkard’s confidence he wanted to tell her all that...but wisdom prevailed…atleast once…

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She was listening to Sufi music when she thought of him…(or was she listening to Sufi music because she wanted to think about him)…she was not comfortable with not having ended it on a positive note…she wanted to finish it clinically...leaving no lose ends…no hard feelings….she would have liked to be in touch, once in a while…exchange of mails…or a message on social networking…but she supposed he would still be angry…jerk…